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New here and a couple of questions

Hello, I hope this is placed in the right spot. I am new here and our family is looking to adopt a ckcs puppy for the first time. I've been doing a lot of research on the breed, health issues, finding a breeder etc but was wondering if someone could pm me privately with a name of two of a reputable breeder in the Southwestern Ontario area. We are also open to one in Michigan if they are within an hour or two of the Detroit/Metro area. I have contacted several on my own and am looking into each of them as they reply back but it would be wonderful to hear from someone who has been through this before. Also, how common is it for breeders to MRI their dogs? I'm finding it to be more miss than hit with the ones I have contacted. Thanks so much for any help!

Welcome and it's great that you are taking time to research and talk to breeders.

I Will PM you the details of one of the few US breeders I know of who will talk to you honestly about health issues. She is in a state not too far away and has been a health advocate for decades (enduring a lot of criticism -- for perspectives that over time have turned out to be right) and will not tell you things like, "Well, I don't MRI but have never seen SM in my lines" or "Try this breeder. She doesn't MRI but I trust her lines and she's never had a known case of SM."

Unfortunately this is the kind of advice some shameless US breeders were recently offering on one of the large email lists filled with puppy buyers who could be sadly misled by this kind of thing (no breeder, who has homed in many cases, dozens to hundreds of puppies, will possibly know whether they have developed SM and the likelihood is that many have -- the affectedness rate is around 70% for the breed though most do not seem to develop symptoms or serious symptoms, thankfully). I will also give a contact at the Canadian CKCS club. Either of these people may be able to help you reduce the amount of screening you are doing as they scan and will know others who scan, or you may choose to work with them. Sadly far too few US/Canadian breeders MRI (there are some low cost programmes though in both countries so it is improving ).

You may very possibly need to search wider than just an hour or two away -- finding a really good breeder takes time (as you are finding!) and the good ones, with a prospective litter, are often not nearby.

Hi Karlin, thanks so much for the reply and the PM as well. Believe it or not the name you mentioned in the PM is actually one of the breeders I contacted and have been in communication with just today. I was very pleased to hear from them and learned that they are only a few hours away from us! I now feel like I'm heading in the right direction and hopefully this breeder will be able to help us find the right puppy for us

Oh, it's few in Canada as well, in proportion to the total number of show breeders or especially, all breeders. All efforts are to be applauded where breeders both scan and then, use that information within breeding guidelines to help improve the breed.

Thanks so much to everyone who has helped, I really appreciate it. All together I think I contacted about 7 or 8 breeders in Ontario and found 2 that scan. Everyone else had varying opinions on it and one didn't believe in it at all. I also have a couple more names to check out and will be doing that this week. Again, many thanks to all of you!